Obsidian's Chris Avellone indicated that Obsidian just missed a bonus for Fallout: New Vegas, reports Joystiq, saying this came in a tweet from a no longer existent account, allegedly saying: "[Fallout: New Vegas] was a straight payment, no royalties, only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn't." Sure enough, the game currently sits at 84 on Metacritic. They also note their report of layoffs at Obsidian, though these are still unconfirmed. Thanks nin.

Cutter wrote on Mar 15, 2012, 22:02:Well that's how it goes. Same in sports. Don't do enough of XYZ and no bonus for you. Given how much money they make with this sort of stuff anyway I doubt anyone is shedding any tears for them.

Obsidian needs to do a Kickstarter for a new CRPG creator in the vein of NWN!

But at least in sports, MOST of those clauses are something you at least have some margin of control over. You get a bonus if you win the MVP, which is mostly in your hands. You get a bonus if you hit the most three-pointers in the season, which is pretty much in your hands (no pun intended.)

Etc. Some of those clauses are still dependent on the views of others (in the case of the MVP award in baseball, in the hands of the retarded fossils that make up the BBWAA, who shouldn't be allowed to fucking vote on what to have for lunch today,) but in the case of Obsidian, it's basically all out of their hands.

And like someone mentioned below, the bar being set at 85% is already shitty, because it means that a site that scores on a 1-5 basis HAS to give you a 5, otherwise your average goes down.

Just a bad deal all around. I hope the cash they got made up for it.

Creston

Not really, Cres. Most of them are pretty specific. You need to sack a QB X amount of times or have so many shut-outs or the like. They're reasonable but they still have a hard cap. As others have mentioned, it was just bad negotiating on their part. Much better to go the route about general sales targets than some arbitrary review mechanic.

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